How Tom Brady Almost Got Me Killed

Here’s how. Monday Night Football. Patriots against the Bills. Things started poorly. There was not enough oil to make the buffalo wings and French fries, so I had to go back to the store for a second time (and we won’t be discussing the car fiasco from the first trip to the store at this time, or any other if I have my say). The fries ended up overdone too, although the wings came out just right, although just seconds before kickoff. From the beginning of the game it was obvious that things weren’t going well. Tom Brady looked like a guy who hadn’t played any real football (let’s not kid ourselves, the exhibition games were meaningless) for a year, and who was dealing with the physical and mental ramifications of a serious knee injury. He was indecisive. He was inaccurate. He looked uncomfortable. In other words, he looked like an average quarterback, instead of one of the ten best who’ve ever played. And the defense wasn’t helping any. They couldn’t get off the field, letting the Bills move the ball pretty easily on them. Had Jerod Mayo not been injured early in the game things may have been different. Things weren’t going too great while he was in there though, which does not bode well for the rest of the season. He never returned last night. Hopefully it is a minor injury, or things could be really bad. They’re going to have to score a lot of points anyway I think.

At halftime Jayne decided to go to bed. And in the second half things got even worse. Buffalo was making all the right plays, and the Pats couldn’t get any offense going. They had to settle for field goals, when they should have scored touchdowns. Tom continued to play, to be honest, mediocre football. He never threw the ball more than 10-12 yards. No bombs to Galloway or Randy Moss. No deep crossing patterns to Wes Welker. Just dinks and dunks (very much like how he played as a rookie in 2001, only back then they had one of the best defenses in the league and you KNEW they would get more chances). But they couldn’t get into the end zone. Tom just didn’t look like he had it. And when the Bills scored to make it 24-13 late in the 4th it seemed pretty hopeless. It was during that touchdown drive that point where I started yelling at the tv in frustration.

There were 5 and a half minutes left in the game. I still had a little hope, but I knew they had to score quickly, so that they could have a chance to get the ball back. They had 3 timeouts and the two minute warning to stop the clock. If they could score quickly the defense would have a chance to stop the Bills and get Tom the ball back with a minute or so. It was doable (although I had very little confidence that the defense would come through, and only slightly more than a little confidence that Tom would based on how he had been playing up until that point). So when Tom started the next possession by continuing to dink and dunk (3 yards here, 6 yards there, 2 yards more and a first down…..aaaarrrrggghhh!) I really started to lose it. “Moooooooove!!!! I screamed. We don’t have frelling time to do this!!!!” Time was slowly bleeding away. It was under 4 minutes…….then under 3 minutes, and yet Tom kept lollygagging around, as if he had all the time in the world. A pass to Moss for 8……….. another pass to Welker for 6……... Dink…………. Donk……….. Dunk.

“Yougottafuckingscorefasterthanthis!!!!!!!!!!” Finally, Tom throws a touchdown pass to Ben Watson to make it 24-19. But only 2:06 remains on the clock. All the bills would have to do is get one first down on their next possession and the clock would run out. Based on how things had gone up until then it seemed a foregone conclusion that the Bills would get that first down. But then fate took a hand. On the ensuing kickoff the ball was caught in the end zone…….and the runner ran out!!! All he had to do was stand there for a couple seconds and then kneel down for a touchback. The clock would have gone down to the two minute warning, taking away one of the Pats chances to stop the clock. And even had it not run down under two minutes their offense was almost sure to be able to get one first down and run out the clock. And even if they didn’t run out the clock, they could have run it down to about a minute even with the Pats taking all three time outs. A punt then would have left the Pats 70 yards or so to go to win the game. But he decided to come out of the end zone. And was hit hard at the 25. And then continued to struggle to stay on his feet instead of going to the ground! And then had the ball pulled out of his hands!! And recovered on the 30 yard line by the Pats!!! 4 plays later Tom threw another touchdown to Watson, making it 25-24 Patriots. Pandemonium. With 50 seconds left the Bills got the ball back, but couldn’t get close enough to try a field goal and the Pats had an improbable victory. After watching the press conferences I finally went to bed, completely spent emotionally. Jayne was awake, and I apologized for all the ruckus. “It’s a good thing you stopped when you did” she said “because I was just about to come down and kill you. You woke me up about 5 times”.

So, there you have it. How Tom Brady Nearly Got Me Killed. My wife would have been profiled on one of those shows on the We (women’s entertainment) network. Snapped, or something like that. And most women would have agreed she was within her rights to have killed me and buried me under the deck. But as I reminded her, she knew when she got into this marriage that I was a lunatic, especially when sports was involved.

Several players said that Tom predicted they’d win. That during the drive starting with 5:32 left in the game he told them in the huddle “ok, we’re going to go down and score before the 2 minute warning. Then we’re gonna get the ball back somehow, and win the game”. I wish he had let me in on this. It might have saved me some grief (and potentially my life, heh heh)

But still, if you’re reading this Tom, can you do me a favor and make the next few games a little less stressful? Thanks.